SEC Flash Report - April 2016

SEC Publishes Concept Release on Regulation S-K

Details

On April 13th, the Securities and Exchange Commission published a concept release on Regulation S-K. The release is part of the Disclosure Effectiveness Initiative, an ongoing broad-based staff review of the SEC’s disclosure rules to consider ways to improve the requirements for companies and investors. The release follows the SEC’s request for comment on the effectiveness of certain financial disclosure requirements of Regulation S-X published in September 2015.1

The release focuses on the business and financial disclosures that Regulation S-K requires in companies’ periodic reports, many of which have not changed since they were first adopted over thirty years ago. The release seeks input from investors and registrants in the following areas:

The overall disclosure framework (e.g., the concept of materiality)

Information intended for investment and voting decisions, including:

Core company business information (e.g., narrative description of business)